Casting coup

Ad filmmaker-turned-offbeat director Vidhu Vinod Chopra is meticulous about casting as he believes that each character needs a particular face. With Munnabhai MBBS, in which he has cast Sunil Dutt and Sanjay Dutt together for the first time, he dons the mantle of producer, 
reports Vickey Lalwani.

VIDHU Vinod Chopra is not a businessman. He is a filmmaker who wouldn't back a film unless he was completely sure about it. Says who? Raju Hirani, Chopra's editor of many films and debutant director of the latter's first production, Munnabhai MBBS starring Sunil Dutt, Sanjay Dutt and Gracy Singh. Excerpts from an interview:

When Raju came to me with the script of Munnabhai MBBS, I loved the simplicity of it. We worked on it for a year. Here was a film which talked of human warmth versus cold medical science. It spoke about human values and how at the end of the day, they matter more than anything else. I wanted to produce a film which I completely believed in and Munnabhai MBBS fitted the bill. Besides, Raju has edited my films, including Mission Kashmir, and he had it in him to direct his own film, so I thought of givinf him the chance.

Munnabhai MBBS is a hilarious and heart-warming story of a local goon's journey into the medical world—a place he neither belongs to, nor believes in. It is a classic story of a right man in a wrong place.

Absolutely. I took nearly a year to decide the complete cast. Just as I felt nobody could have suited 1942, A Love Story better than Anil Kapoor, nobody else could have got into Sanjay Dutt's shoes in Mission Kashmir.

(Interrupts) That's right. We had designed the film keeping Shah Rukh in mind but he developed health problems, and it was only fair that we let him go. He even wrote some scenes for the film for which we will give him credit. Now, of course, he's a part of my next film. Sanjay was to initially play the role which Jimmy Shergill is playing now. So it was only a matter of a little bit of juggling around with my cast. Anyway, I'm happy that Sanjay did the film because if it were not for him, we would have probably not got Sunil Dutt saab to play the role of Sanju's father.

Upright, principled and unfailingly righteous, Hari Prasad Sharma (Dutt saab) is a throwback to a bygone era. His conscience, like the pagdi on his head, is spotless. Imagine his heartbreak when he discovers that his own son whom he believes to be a doctor is a tapori called Munnabhai.

He brought a certain amount of character and dignity to the role. It's for the first time Sanju and he are working together and I hope the audience loves it.

I wanted a very innocent Indian face.

There are at least three reasons why people should love this film (laughs). One, it's a happy film that will make you cry. Two, it's a lesson in living life. And three, it's an absolute entertainer.

No. I never went on the sets.

Once it got under way, it required just 72 days of shooting. We shot primarily in Mumbai.

Let's keep that for another day! TWF

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